A/N: The title of this story is taken from Kipling's poem of the same name. Please be aware that I freely pick and choose among canon and semi-canon, so this fic is often fairly AU. I also - selectively - include real-life lion behavioural patterns in this. Please be warned for some violence, character death, and some mature themes (though there is absolutely nothing explicit).
Part I:
MOTHER
There was a throbbing, pulsing pain somewhere low in her gut, coming in spasms and leaving her exhausted after each push against her innards. Was she in that field again, far from Pride Rock, nestled among grasses in a hollow, ringed in by rocks and safe from other creatures? She could certainly smell the blood - but this was a different kind of blood. There was nothing hopeful in it, no joy in this agony; it was not speckled over the fresh, new fur of her first son, the bigger child, golden as the sunrise. And she could hear rattling gourds, and low chanting - not the keening mewling of her second born as he slid into the world, his brilliant emerald eyes still shut away from the dawn as she took him by the scruff and put him at her belly. Her tongue was not rasping over their fur, warming them, cleaning them, whispering prayers and dreams and promises to them. It was stuck to the roof of her mouth, and everything reeked, metallic and rotten. This was not the taste of birth, she realised - this was the taste of death. The similarity almost brought her comfort.
Dimly, the visions and illusions gave way to waking. Under the shamanic sounds above her head, Uru was aware of the silence, a savannah holding its breath. She could see a low light behind the lids of her darkening eyes. As the pain surged again, dull and yet still potent, everything came back to her, swamping her mind in flashes of sun-drenched images.
It had happened on the hunt.
She'd been out with the other lionesses, keeping an eye on Sarabi and Sarafina. They were still so young, and yet so light on their feet, lithe as they moved through the grasses, padding over soft patches and sidestepping brittle twigs. She'd hardly needed to guide them – they took to the role of huntresses so naturally. Sarabi, with her fierceness and bold directions to the smaller lioness. Sarafina, with her swift, calculated efficiency, her focused tenacity. It had been going so well. The two had already brought down a gazelle despite the encroaching drought that was limiting the herds. Pride surged through her, as though they were her own daughters. All their doubts and worry for their first hunt had come to nothing after all. Success was their province.
Uru's pride had swelled to excitement. With the girls' training well under way, very soon she'd be able to take her own children on a proper hunt, beyond stalking birds and mice within shouting distance of Pride Rock. They could go for days out in the savannah, tracking and bringing down the most difficult prey. No matter that the brothers would likely stay together when they came of age – hunting was a skill worth having, and she was master of it as Ahadi was master of kingship. Already this day her sons were out on patrol with their father, learning the lay of the land and its myriad inhabitants with deeper intricacy than they had as cubs. As he did, she would share everything she knew with them, every skill and lesson and tactic she'd garnered over her short years on this earth. Things that would help them work wonders. Things that would make them into the most noble and valiant princes the Pridelands had ever seen.
And then, in the midst of her haze of joy, the two youngest lionesses had found themselves in the middle of a herd of water buffalo.
What happened next, Uru could not recall with full clarity. She'd been separated from them in her musings, and she'd run then, hearing their screams, run with a blind, protective fierceness. It was a huge herd – it was a violent herd. She had said something to the one she took for its leader, the one who stood knee-deep in the waterhole, claiming it with a baying roar. She did not even remember being struck, being carried away by the brave, intrepid young lionesses, back to the rest of the hunting party, back to Pride Rock, back to a shaman who for all his skill could not heal a lioness gored in the side.
"I am sorry, my king," came a voice, drawing her out of the memory. "There is nothing more to be done - but I have taken away some of her pain."
It was the mandrill, she realised, though there was none of his classic mischief infecting his words, no parables or metaphors. He was greeted first by silence.
Then, a low rumble. "Thank you, Rafiki."
She felt her heart splutter in her chest, leaping out to meet his - Ahadi! it cried. Ahadi! Come and tell me it will be alright.
With all her strength, she opened her eyes, and there he was – golden in the sunlight, his mane a black halo, and his green, green eyes, glossed over with pain. He stepped forward and touched his nose to her cheek. At first, it was like a bolt of lightning – then she hardly felt anything at all. She unstuck her tongue from within her mouth, opening her jaws that grazed over the dusty earth, summoning the barest scrap of air to speak.
"Sarabi," she breathed. "Sarafina."
"They're safe," he murmured.
"They were so brave," she whispered. "Such good huntresses. Caught a gazelle."
"They'll keep the pride strong and healthy," he affirmed, and she detected the tiniest hitch in his voice, the one only she knew, the one he hid so well from all others. He was comforting her, the best way he knew how. She had been born to lead this pride. To know it was safe – that all its children were safe, that they would be provided for – such things had been her gravest concern since before she had even met him. She wished she could reach him now, but she had not the strength to rise and nuzzle him, to lift her head from the dirt. She felt it in her bones. Time. She was running out of time. So little left.
She let out a deep sigh, swallowing the dull spasm of pain that gripped her body. "Where are the children?"
He turned wordlessly, looking behind him, and nodded towards her. She urged strength into her body now. She would make herself rise up. She would lick the tops of their heads as she had done when they were small, one last time, one last moment of her being mother to her beloved cubs.
She forced her eyes to remain open wide as they stepped into her vision, side by side. It was wrong – there were four of them. She made herself focus, she strained her eyes until she felt the pain lancing through her head, until they became two strong young lions looking down on her in fear and sorrow.
She wanted to memorise every inch of them, to take them with her when she went to join the ancestors. Mufasa, a ray of sun made flesh, round and big-boned like she was, solidity in his stature and kindness in every footfall upon the earth. Taka, who looked so much like his father, all angles and emerald eyes, save for his pelt – dirt brown like hers, the colour of the hard-packed soil of the savannah, a foundation, a fertile ground for good things to grow. Their manes were beginning to come in – one red as the dawn, the other black as night. She had seen them every day, had watched them turn from scrabbling, sightless newborns to strong, young princes – and yet now, only now, when she was sure she would lose them in an instant, not to be seen again for time immeasurable, that she truly realised how much they had grown.
She was glad they were together – glad they hadn't been with her when it happened. Who knows what they'd have done? Attacked in anger, gotten themselves hurt. Impulsive young boys, Great Kings bless them. Still, part of her knew what losing her would do to them. It surged to the front of her mind, a worry she knew that her short minutes left on this earth would never allay. Leaving the two of them here, with Ahadi, who for all his kingly knowledge had not the wisdom of a mother, and knew not the intricacies of his children's characters…it would not bode well. Even today– if she'd seen the end of today in one piece – she'd have had pieces to pick up, damage to repair, tempers to weather and hearts to mend.
She had hoped only Taka would go with Ahadi today. She'd hoped he'd have this chance to see the kingdom alone with his father, to feel that he was as much responsible for it as his brother, was as trusted as his brother. Her dear Taka – he grasped the subtleties of everything and the glaring truths of nothing. Of course she and Ahadi saw the brothers as equal, each as worthy as the other – but Taka did not see that. He saw what he wished to see. He embodied his name – want. He did not see what he already had.
Every day she spent loving the two of them with more than her heart had given her to share with them. Indeed, when was the last time she had lathered such affection upon her own mate? Not since the cubs were born. Her own mother had imparted the lesson to her – if you make every choice and decision with your children in mind, you will not falter. Not for them, not for your family, not for yourself. She could only give so much, however. When her children and mate negated those choices, what path could she take? When Taka's eagerness and ambition wilted in his heart to stalks of envy and betrayal; when Mufasa's desire to act in goodness and fairness and embody his duty blinded him from the true hearts of others and bid him take actions that seemed good to himself but were detrimental to others; when such things were the case, what more could she do? What more could a mother do than love her children and raise them in strength and fairness, and teach them the remedies of their failings, and heal them when they were broken?
A deep grief filled her. If only Mufasa had agreed to come with her today, instead of insisting he went with his father. Never mind if she'd died protecting him in the end; the damage would not be done, and the family would stay together. Then again, she thought, Taka sees blame in everything. No matter what happened, you know what he would believe. Yes she knew her children's hearts, knew them with the same intricacy and depth as Ahadi knew the Pridelands. This would tear her sons apart.
"Come here," she whispered to them. "Ahadi, lift me up."
Silently, he sat behind her, gently raising her head so it rested on his flank, and she could watch her children without strain. They padded forward, settling on either side of her head, pressing as close to her as they could. Such peace she felt then – surrounded by the most important individuals in her life. They all felt so strong, so warm, so full of life and energy and love and joy in the world. This is good, she thought to herself. No matter what happens, this is good.
She licked the tops of her children's heads.
"I don't have much time left," she whispered.
"You can't die," Taka cut in, and the pain in his voice, deepening now as he grew, was like a thorn in her heart. "Not yet."
She touched her nose to his ear. He knew she would not survive this. Otherwise this Taka, the Taka of today, the one beyond childhood vulnerabilities, would never have said such things in the presence of his brother and father.
"Don't worry," she murmured, forcing her smile to reach her eyes, forcing air into the shallow breaths of her lungs, forcing the words out. "I'll…always be with you. This is...just a body. My spirit...in the stars, yes?"
"The stars are so far away," Mufasa whimpered, tucking his head under her chin, young again, small again, scared in a time before he became brave. "This hurts. Too much."
With what strength she could still summon into muscle and bone, she licked his forehead. She could hardly feel her body now; could hardly sense her breath stirring the air. Still, she spoke. She would speak until she could not. "Of course, my son. This will cut you deep. But you…will survive. The cut will leave a scar. A scar...means you are strong. You survived. You can be brave...must be brave...but not foolish...reckless. Now…look at me."
Twin pools – earth brown, grass green – met hers.
"Must take care of each other," she wheezed, as the sun darkened, as the world narrowed into the twin pools. She felt Ahadi's comforting purr beneath her, sank into him, held onto him as her anchor, kept her thought utterly bent on the two pairs of eyes – hers and his, now belonging to them, their legacies.
"Ahadi," she whispered. "My sons..."
The light dipped beyond the horizon, and a mournful wail went up, a call echoing between trees and across plains as the message spread throughout the savannah. The sun was setting on the time of Uru, mother of the Pridelands. Darkness fell swiftly, and the Great Kings looked out from their high places. Somewhere, between the bright spots of green and brown, she saw an empty patch in the sky, waiting for a new star, another light to guide the living through the darkness beyond sunset. She felt the weakness in her body fleeing, felt strength returning to huntress paws, the winds of night carrying her far from her forsaken vessel on the earth and up into the night.
And so she was not there, when the days drew down into enmity between sons and fathers and brothers, and blame became anger and hate. She was not there when the water buffalo came back, and came for Taka, and threw their horned heads in a frenzy to strike down another royal. She was not there to comfort him when he was left with a real, deep, bleeding scar of his own, more visible than the scars of grief that crisscrossed the hearts of all her bereaved family – one that neither killed him nor blinded him, for better or for worse. She was not there as he renamed himself in the memory of her words, half-real though they were, and shrouded by the mists of death. Strong enough to survive his own recklessness. Strong enough to embrace his true nature, no longer hiding behind 'Taka'. She was not there to lament the loss.
